The keyboard shortcuts worth learning, for Windows and Mac

A shortcut saves maybe a second over the mouse. That sounds like nothing until you count how often you do the same thing. Copy and paste, switch windows, find a word on a page, delete a word you just mistyped: these happen hundreds of times a day. Learn the right twenty or thirty shortcuts and you stop breaking your typing rhythm every time you need to do something other than type.

This guide lists the shortcuts we think are worth the effort, with Windows and Mac versions side by side. Then it explains how to learn them so they become reflexes instead of a cheat sheet you never look at.

Windows vs Mac: the one rule to remember

For most shortcuts, swap Ctrl on Windows for Cmd on a Mac. Ctrl+C becomes Cmd+C, Ctrl+S becomes Cmd+S, and so on.

The main exception is moving around text. On a Mac, Option jumps by word and Cmd jumps to the edge of a line or document. On Windows, Ctrl jumps by word and Home/End go to the edges of a line. Linux mostly follows the Windows pattern.

If you switch between both systems every day, expect a few weeks of pressing the wrong one. It passes.

The everyday essentials

If you only learn one table, make it this one. These work in nearly every app on both systems.

Paste without formatting deserves a special mention. It drops the fonts, colours and sizes that come along when you copy from a web page into an email or document. Once you know it, you will use it constantly.

System and window shortcuts

These are about moving between things: apps, windows, desktops. They are where people who live in the mouse lose the most time.

Two from this list are worth extra attention. Alt/Cmd+Tab is the one shortcut that most changes how a computer feels, because it turns jumping between a document and a browser into a flick. And on Windows, Win+V clipboard history (you may need to switch it on the first time) lets you copy five things and paste them in any order.

Browser shortcuts

These work in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari unless noted. Most of us spend hours a day in a browser, so these add up fast.

The address bar shortcut is the sleeper hit. Ctrl/Cmd+L selects the whole URL, so you can type a search or a new address straight away. Pair it with Ctrl/Cmd+T and you rarely need to click into the browser's top bar again.

Text editing shortcuts that make you a faster typist

These are the ones typists care about most, because they replace the slowest habit there is: holding down an arrow key or Backspace and waiting.

Delete previous word is the big one. When you notice a typo two letters back, most people tap Backspace several times, look, tap again. Deleting the whole word and retyping it is usually faster and needs no thought. Many fast typists do this almost automatically. It works in almost every text box you will ever type in, so there is no reason not to learn it this week.

How to learn shortcuts so they stick

Reading a list of shortcuts teaches you almost nothing. You will remember three of them tomorrow and none next week. Shortcuts are motor memory, like typing itself, so they have to be practised. What works is learning a few at a time:

1. Pick three. Not ten. Choose three you would use today, in work you are already doing.
2. Write them on a sticky note and put it on the edge of your screen.
3. Catch yourself. Every time your hand moves to the mouse for one of those three actions, stop, put it back and use the shortcut. It will feel slower for a day or two, which is normal.
4. Drill them for two minutes a day so your fingers learn the shape of the combination, not just the letters.
5. After a week, add three more. Throw out the note once you stop glancing at it.

Keep that going for two or three months and you will have thirty or so shortcuts in your hands, without ever sitting down to memorise a list.

A few tips that help:

• Use the menus as a reference. Most apps show the shortcut next to each menu item. When you click a menu item, read the shortcut first.
• Learn the modifier patterns. Shift usually reverses or extends (Ctrl+Tab forward, Ctrl+Shift+Tab back; arrows move, Shift+arrows select). Once you see the pattern, new shortcuts are easier to guess.
• Use proper fingers. Hold modifiers with the hand opposite the letter where possible, and use your pinky or thumb rather than stretching one hand into a claw. Our ergonomics guide has more on keeping hands relaxed.

Practise shortcuts on Presspace

The keyboard shortcuts trainer on Presspace drills 82 shortcuts for Windows, macOS and Linux. You press each one against a working miniature of the app it belongs to, so you see the text get copied, the word get deleted or the tab get reopened, instead of just matching keys to a list. Shortcuts are grouped into decks: everyday essentials, text editing, web browser, Windows and desktop, VS Code, spreadsheets and the terminal. A few combinations the browser keeps for itself, like closing the window, appear in the reference sheet but cannot be drilled, because no web page is allowed to catch them.

Two minutes on one deck a day is enough. Start with everyday essentials, then move to text editing, which has the biggest effect on how fast you type in real life. If you write code, the VS Code and terminal decks pair well with our guide to typing for programmers.

Your next step

Choose three shortcuts from this page that you did not use yesterday. Write them down, open the shortcuts trainer for a two-minute drill, and then use them in your real work for the rest of the day. Come back next week for three more.

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